Sam Lake “politely” asked Alan Wake 2 devs to kill him more violently: “There was hardly any blood in the first iteration”

Before Alan Wake 2 came out and shook up the 2023 GOTY conversation, director Sam Lake wasn’t satisfied with his character’s death scene because in his view it wasn’t sufficiently bloody.

According to Lake, Alex Casey’s death scene in the Initiation 2 (Casey) chapter of Alan Wake 2 originally wasn’t very bloody at all. It wasn’t until Lake stepped in and insisted his character’s death be more violent that we got the scene as we know it today.

“There was hardly any blood in the first iteration of Casey dying in the alley,” Lake said, adding that he “politely” asked for “a LOT more” blood in the scene. He even had the cheek to put an innocent angel emoji in the tweet. Sam Lake, you devil, you.

The actual murder of Sam Lake’s character isn’t seen, but you can hear him fighting for his life off-screen, and it indeed sounds pretty darn violent. It would be a little awkward if there was no blood at the murder scene. Basically, I’d say Lake made the right call when he asked for more evidence of what sounded like a pretty brutal struggle.

You also have to sympathize with the developers in this situation who were asked by their boss to make his death scene even more gruesome. I can only hope there’s a screenshot somewhere of that conversation that was saved as evidence that Lake himself asked for this. It’s not every day you get to destroy our own likeness, or your boss’s. 

Alan Wake 2’s second and final DLC, The Lake House, is expected to arrive sometime in October.

Are you one of the few fans that noticed these neat Alan Wake 2 audio cues the devs are thrilled to finally see discovered?